The continuing growth of road traffic, in both developed and developing countries, has further increased the emphasis on the need to provide sustainable infrastructure that has acceptable levels of safety and comfort. It is therefore, widely recognised that in order to maintain the road surfaces to an acceptable standard there is a need to monitor the surface parameters at regular intervals. Thus, much research and development work is devoted to the design and construction of equipment capable of measuring the required parameters to an acceptable level of accuracy. The wide range of equipment developed for road monitoring purposes has in turn led to the need for harmonisation of the road assessments provided by the different equipment. This is particularly important, not only for correct and equitable maintenance investment decisions by government departments and by funding institutions such as the World Bank, but also to aid collaborative research between different countries. The current work programme of the Technical Committee on Surface Characteristics (TC1) has endeavoured to continue with these developments and to further promote the adoption of appropriate and improved practices throughout the world. In particular the programme of work undertaken by Working Group A of TC1 has been concerned with both new and ongoing studies relating to the improvement and harmonisation of measurements of the road surface characteristics that influence skid resistance, profile, traffic rolling noise and surface distress. This paper provides a summary of the work of the various subgroups within Working Group A, together with related items on the harmonisation and standardisation of measurement methods and an experiment to continue this work in the area of skid resistance measurement. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Samenvatting